He smiled and shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Hey, are you okay? Your voice doesn't sound too good."

She groaned, touching her throat. "Yuck. I know. My throat is killing me."

Nick grinned. "Haha, sucks for you."

"Yeah, it really does suck for me because I think I'm getting sick."

"Oh, that's really bad," Nick said, turning serious.

She nodded. "I know."

"Maybe it'll just go away," he suggested.

She smiled weakly. "I hope so but I don't think it's very likely."

Nick gave her a sympathetic smile and patted her on the shoulder. "Okay, well, I have to go 'cause I'm already late, but you feel better and I'll see you at dinner tonight."

Kayla nodded. "Okay. Bye Nicky," she said with a smirk as they started to walk in different directions again.

"Don't call me Nicky!" was the last thing she heard from him before the door to the conference room he was heading to slammed shut.

* * *

Kayla groaned and put a hand to her forehead as she woke up the next morning. Yep. She had been right about the throat thing. She was sick now. Her head felt warm and dizzy, her nose was slightly stuffed up, and her throat was still fiery with pain. Seeing that she still had thirty minutes until her alarm would go off, Kayla squeezed her eyes shut and tried to go back to sleep. No use. She was way too uncomfortable. Good thing she had finished all of her recording the day before. The only thing scheduled for today was editing, and that could go on without her.

Kayla reached for her phone and dialed the number of the receptionist at the studio. Someone answered after two rings.

"Hello?" a perky female voice said.

"Hi, this is Kayla Prescott. In case you can't tell by my voice, I'm sick today, and I don't think I'm going to be able to make it up there. Can you tell everyone that?"

"Sure, Kayla. Looks like...yes, all you have today is editing, no recording, so that shouldn't be a problem."

"Thank you."

"Mm-hm. Bye."

"Bye."

Kayla hung up the phone and then rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. A few minutes later, the phone rang. Grumbling, she reached over and answered it.

"Well, I was going to ask you if you needed a ride to the studio, but instead, why don't you come over to my house? You and Nick can keep each other company," Brian suggested.

Kayla frowned. "I don't know. I was going to just rest today."

"You can rest here. Believe me, Nick isn't up to much either. The only reason I found out he was sick was he never turned off his alarm so I went in there to see what was going on. He was sleeping like a baby, and when I woke him up, he could barely talk."

Kayla shrugged. "Well, okay."

Brian smiled. "Okay. Good."

"How long do I have before you get here?" Kayla wondered.

"Um..." Brian checked the nearest clock. "Thirty minutes?"

"Sounds good. Thanks for doing this, Brian," she said.

He smiled. "No problem. See you then."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Kayla hung up the phone and resisted the urge to lie back down again. She had to go get ready for Brian to come, and since she was going to be spending the day with Nick, she had to make herself look fairly decent. Kayla was grumbling to herself again as she got to her feet and went into the bathroom. Being sick totally sucked.